


Through The Windowpane

by stereomer



Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-23
Updated: 2012-03-23
Packaged: 2017-11-02 09:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereomer/pseuds/stereomer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 'Dead Like Me' AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through The Windowpane

“Okay, I’m leaving.” Mikey scooted his chair back and dumped the rest of his coffee down the sink. He spared a few seconds to watch the liquid pool up and gurgle around the drain that was definitely not living up to its name. “By the way, the drain’s still clogged.”   
  
“We’re out of eggs,” Gerard replied from the kitchen table, as if it was a fitting response.    
  
Mikey turned around to see Gerard still concentrating down on the comics section, mug steaming silently by his elbow. “Is this the part where I offer to buy some on the way home?”   
  
“Yep.”    
  
“I’m charging you 20% interest,” Mikey told him. Gerard raised his eyes and said, “When the show gets picked up, you can charge me 200% interest, how’s that sound?”   
  
“Sounds good. When it gets cancelled, I’ll refund you some of it.”   
  
“Ha. Bye, fucker.” Gerard held his mug over the lower half of his face and scrunched his nose up. The clock on the wall above his head said it was 9:12, which meant Mikey was late for work no matter what.    
  
“See ya,” Mikey sighed resignedly. He closed the door and squinted against the unhindered sunlight that greeted him.   
  
  


***

  
  


> > > _N.G. Schwartz  
>  8:36 am_  
> 
>>> 
>>>  

> > > “Harold! The usual?” 
>>> 
>>> “Yeah, thanks,” Mikey calls. Christ. He gets into a horrific car accident and instead of going up to hang out with the Big Man – if one even exists, Mikey still doesn’t know – he gets shunted sideways and semi-resurrected into a reaper and his name is  _Harold_. 
>>> 
>>> He’s still shaking his head and snorting to himself a little when he slides into the booth. Across from him, Pete wraps his hands around his cup and holds it up until the rim presses against his chin. “What’s up with you?” he asks, blowing away steam and smiling. 
>>> 
>>> “Nothing. Just.” Another cup of coffee slides to a stop on the table and Mikey stares down at the way the liquid shivers, the dollop of cream still uncurling into white ribbons. 
>>> 
>>> “Just, huh?” Pete slurps, then sets the cup down and reaches out with one hand. “Let me see it.”
>>> 
>>> It takes a few moments for Mikey to fish out the crumbled Post-It from the depths of his pocket. He deposits it onto Pete’s palm without bothering to straighten the creases, steeling himself to sit through another talk about how he needs to learn how to let go and not get involved, and that this is the way things work and they’re only doing their part to keep the world on its precariously balanced tilt, blah blah. 
>>> 
>>> Instead, Pete makes an indiscernible noise and stuffs the note into his own pocket. He says, “You’ll get used to it,” with something akin to sympathy. Chin up, kid. Keep your head up, champ. 
>>> 
>>> Mikey voices his next thought out loud. “Walk it off, son,” he says, and Pete laughs. 
>>> 
>>> “Yeah, that’s the mindset, pretty much.”
>>> 
>>> Gabe slides into the space next to Pete in a rush of cold wind and a breezy, “Hey hey. Finished?”
>>> 
>>> “Till 4:30, yeah.” Pete glances over his shoulder to check the clock. 
>>> 
>>> Gabe sits up straight to gesture to the waitress before slumping down again. He drapes an arm over the back and grins at Mikey. “How you holding up, sport? Your second soul any easier?”
>>> 
>>> “Not particularly,” Mikey mumbles. Strangely enough, taking souls makes him undecided as to whether he wants to order the diner’s special all-encompassing sampler or vomit everything he’s ever eaten. 
>>> 
>>> “Yeah, well,” Gabe says, as if prepared to hear this answer. He draws out his beat up dayplanner from his coat pocket and starts penciling in the blank spaces. There are outlines of bags under his eyes, long and curving like fishhooks, but he holds his pen steady. “But the beat still marches on, right?” 
>>> 
>>> “Sing it, man,” Pete says, knocking out a little rhythm on the table with quick raps of his knuckles. He and Gabe have this weird little rapport, verbally bouncing off each other with a comfort that lets Mikey infer they’ve been in this together for a long fucking time.
>>> 
>>> Pete cuts out the drumming when the waitress walks up, as if he’s been caught doing something that could potentially get him into trouble. It’s weird –  he’s obnoxious, but he doesn’t want to offend. “Ready to order?” she asks. June, who covers the morning shifts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. She rests her weight on one foot and taps her pen against the order pad once. 
>>> 
>>> Gabe looks up with a charming smile. “Yes, I’ll have a shortstack, toast on the side with strawberry jam, please.” 
>>> 
>>> She scribbles it down and is turning to walk away when Mikey says, “And I’ll have the special sampler. Please,” he adds. 
>>> 
>>> “Kid with an appetite, I like that.” Gabe nods approvingly. 
>>> 
>>> “It’s my power breakfast,” says Mikey. “Souls and diner samplers.”
>>> 
>>> Gabe is already busy writing again, but Pete smiles at Mikey over his cup. 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> *
>>> 
>>> _P.W. Powell  
>  9:19 am_
>>> 
>>>   
> 
>>> 
>>> It must have rained sometime near dawn, by the looks of it; the streets are slick, sidewalks soaked grey. Mikey pushes his glasses further up onto his nose, an action borne out of habit rather than necessity. The frames are crooked and the lenses are cheap and cloudy, the way all fake plastic tends to be. Still, he squints through them, at the kid who’s running from one side of the street to the other, trying in vain to intercept the ball that’s being tossed in high arcs between two older boys. 
>>> 
>>> “Give it back! Come on!” the kid screams, now jumping up and down in place. It’d actually be kind of funny if Mikey didn’t know what everything was leading up to.
>>> 
>>> He waits until the kid jumps a few more times, fingers stretched toward the sky in pale lines, before stepping off the curb as he crosses the street. In everyone else’s eyes, he’s a perfectly ordinary guy going for a morning walk. 
>>> 
>>> “Hey, Mister,” the kid starts, and Mikey just says, “Don’t give up on it, okay?” and touches the back of his knuckles to the kid’s shoulder for a brief moment.
>>> 
>>> The kid blinks at him owlishly. Dark eyes, dark lashes, dark hair, and all at once, this reminds Mikey of Gerard, like frames of memories caught up in a sandstorm and tossed into his consciousness. He remembers stomping down the basement steps countless times a day and shouting down to Gerard about dinner being ready; the stale smell of cigarettes visibly smeared over walls of the basement like water stains and the expression on Gerard’s face when he caught Mikey smoking for the first time, out in the backyard; feeling the sticky residue of beer on his hands and how he used to press his fingers together just to peel them apart over and over, all while listening to the soft scratching of pencil against paper as Gerard doodled.
>>> 
>>> It’s like he’s been body-slammed, with all the force and none of the pain. Mikey has stilled, he doesn’t know for how long, and one of the older kid’s jeering is what snaps him back into his body. Not  _his_ body per se, he’s still getting used to that fact, but he manages to shake himself out of it and start walking again, quickly crossing over to the opposite curb to continue on the thin park path designated for joggers. 
>>> 
>>> “Fucking weirdo,” he hears one of the kids say, and he walks faster. 
>>> 
>>> His foot is touching down on a crack in the concrete when it happens. The screech of brakes is still audible through the mess of trees, although the other noise isn’t, and Mikey is thankful for that much. 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> *
>>> 
>>>   
> _L.T. Tung  
>  5:02 pm_
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> The paint tubes are arranged in perfect rows with their edges overlapping. Mikey glances over each line, at the color swatches that form a rainbow from dark shades to light. He grabs a few at random, then makes his way down the aisle and picks out some cheap brushes that come in packets. For good measure, he drops a mini-canvas into the basket, too. 
>>> 
>>> It looks like a slow day at the store – Mikey’s pretty sure he’s the only customer in there. He places the basket on the counter and pushes it slightly forward, which is the cue for Gerard to get up from the stool while flashing a tired smile. He spreads a plastic bag next to the basket and asks, “How’s it going?”
>>> 
>>> “You know. It’s going,” Mikey shrugs. 
>>> 
>>> Gerard makes a ‘tch’-ing noise and nods. “Shit, I know how it is,” he says as he punches numbers into the register, flipping over each tube of paint so he can see the price tags on the caps before placing them carefully into the bag. Mikey studies his face without being obvious; Gerard looks the same as ever, if only a tiny bit sickly, almost jaundiced. Mikey wants to tell him to eat all his fucking nutrients. 
>>> 
>>> It’s quiet as Gerard finishes ringing him up. He gestures to the paints. “Jeez, you really go through these, huh?”
>>> 
>>> Mikey snorts, says, “Yeah, I know, right?” He scrunches his nose and looks up and accidentally catches Gerard’s eyes with a smile that’s already half-faded. 
>>> 
>>> Gerard’s hands become motionless just as he’s finishing pulling a knot into the bag handles. He slowly raises his chin to look Mikey full on in the face, mouth slightly open, and  _fuck_. Mikey would know that expression anywhere. ( _Holy shit, Mikes, I just figured it out, the twist ending –_ )
>>> 
>>> _Fuck,_  Mikey thinks again. There’s no way Gerard knows, but still – “Hey, thanks for these,” he says offhandedly, like his heart suddenly isn’t beating twice as hard. He throws a twenty onto the counter, grabs the bag, and walks quickly toward the door without looking back. 
>>> 
>>> Gerard calls out, “Hey!”, his voice cracking just the tiniest bit, but the jingling of the bell cuts him off and Mikey’s safely outside on the other side of the door, making his way up the sidewalk with brisk steps and trying to breathe normally. 
>>> 
>>> “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chants to himself. A metallic clang echoes up when he throws the bag into a trashcan without a second glance and then breaks into a run. 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> “I know I can’t go back.” Mikey takes a deep breath. “He looked good, kind of. He’s getting over it, and that’s good.”
>>> 
>>> “It is good,” Pete agrees. He’s picking at the tiny balls of lint that have formed on Mikey’s sheets and is mushing them together into a bigger mass, rolling it between his thumb and his forefinger. “I'm glad you called me,” he says quietly.
>>> 
>>> “I don’t know,” Mikey says, just to say something, like talking about it will make it better, but then his vision blurs over and he tries to will away the tears. He’s always thought that crying and shit like that is just as embarrassing for the person witnessing it as it is for the person doing it. 
>>> 
>>> It doesn’t work. Mikey figures he should come right out with it. “Not to freak you out or embarrass you or anything, but I’m kind of crying,” he tells Pete.
>>> 
>>> “What’s so freaky or embarrassing about a little water?” Pete says mildly. It’s something Gerard would have said, and Mikey doesn’t cry harder, exactly, but his nose becomes stuffed up and there are several wet spots blotted into the sleeves of his sweater before Pete scoots closer and slings an arm around Mikey’s shoulders. He squeezes once, hard, and then runs the back of his nails over Mikey’s arm, up down up down, as Mikey blinks hotly into the material of his sweater once again. 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> *
>>> 
>>>   
> _R.L. Alfonso  
>  11:37 pm_
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> The windshield is hard and chilly against the back of Mikey’s head, but it’s comfortable enough since the hood of Gabe’s car has copious dents to accommodate the angles of his body. Gabe is slouched down in the middle, feet hanging off the front end of the car, so when Mikey turns his head, he has an unobstructed view of Pete. 
>>> 
>>> “What were you?” Mikey asks him; he clarifies, “I mean, what did you do, you know. For a living.”
>>> 
>>> “I was a poet. Wrote stories and shit,” Pete says, in a surprisingly open way. Mikey would have probably thought about it for a minute, then said, “Nothing, really,” or something else stupid and inconsequential like that. 
>>> 
>>> “You  _would_ , you emotional prick,” Gabe interjects. 
>>> 
>>> “Blow me.” Pete huffs out a breath that materializes in smoky streams. “Man, I swear. The only reason Whitman got more famous than me was because he lived to be like, nine billion years old. I just didn’t get the chance,” he laments, crooking his fingers into his palm and examining his nails. 
>>> 
>>> “Blah blah,” Gabe says absently, staring up at the sky. 
>>> 
>>> “I swear,” Pete says again. 
>>> 
>>> Mikey’s smiling. He likes these moments, when he all of a sudden realizes he’s smiling and he can’t pinpoint exactly when that happened. “It’s cool, I believe you,” he offers. 
>>> 
>>> “You _would_ ,” says Gabe, then laughs when Pete punches him in the arm. It’s unclear whether the punch is in defense of Mikey or because Gabe keeps repeating that stupid phrase. When Mikey looks at Gabe expectantly, Gabe turns his head and says, “Don’t even ask, kid,” in a light voice. 
>>> 
>>> “Gabe was actually a magician,” says Pete, sticking his arm under his head again. 
>>> 
>>> “Yeah?” Gabe asks curiously. “News to me.”
>>> 
>>> “It’s the only explanation as to why you’d be so fucking mysterious about your past.” 
>>> 
>>> “Maybe you just like over-sharing and the rest of us seem like motherfucking KGB in comparison,” Gabe suggests. 
>>> 
>>> “I don’t even share that much,” Pete insists. 
>>> 
>>> Gabe makes a farting noise with his mouth, but then they laugh at each other and the conversation dissolves into silence. Eventually they slide off the car and Gabe drives Mikey home. When Mikey closes the door and leans down to wave through the window, Pete manages to reach out and grab his hand. 
>>> 
>>> “Bye,” he says, giving Mikey’s palm a brief squeeze.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> It doesn’t surprise Mikey when there’s a knock on the door about an hour later. He opens it and Pete doesn’t seem surprised to be there either. 
>>> 
>>> “I figure,” he announces, walking in uninvited and swinging his duffel onto the couch, “I can make rounds between the two of you. Getting my own place is out of the question.”
>>> 
>>> It occurs to Mikey to close the front door. “You can build a wall out of sofa cushions if you want,” he says, hanging around kind of awkwardly despite the fact that this is  _his_  fucking apartment. “Give you your own space and all.” 
>>> 
>>> Then he scratches his elbow. 
>>> 
>>> “Were you always this awkward?” Pete asks, not mockingly or with venom; he just asks. This is Pete, stripped down  – he overcompensates for everything through big actions and words and intrusive questions, but is strangely innocuous all the same.
>>> 
>>> Mikey shrugs. “Only around people who tried to pretend they weren’t.” He leans against the dresser, which is right up by the door, which is about two feet away from the tiny kitchen, which is right behind the couch, and Pete is right there. It feels like it should be suffocating, but it isn’t.
>>> 
>>> “So, like – ” Pete glances up at Mikey. He looks tired. 
>>> 
>>> “I’m too old for this,” Mikey tells him, and it comes out a little more flatly than he wanted it to.
>>> 
>>> “We’re too  _dead_ for this,” Pete reminds him, and the way he stresses the word makes Mikey want to flinch a little. “And, what? Fuck off, I’m a whole century older than you are.” 
>>> 
>>> Mikey rolls his eyes because he knows that Pete knows what he means, and Pete knows that Mikey knows, and so on. Pete reaches out and lightly cuffs Mikey’s chin, then holds it still between his first knuckle and the pad of his thumb pressing underneath Mikey’s lower lip.
>>> 
>>> “I’m hoping there’s a ‘but’.” Pete briefly scrunches his face up, a moment of self-deprecation. “Like, ‘I’m too old for this, but…’”
>>> 
>>> “But,” Mikey agrees. “Yeah. Maybe.” 
>>> 
>>> Pete’s hand doesn’t move off Mikey’s chin as he leans forward. Mikey closes his eyes. 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> *
>>> 
>>>   
> _\----_
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> “I keep waiting for you to disappear.” Mikey picks at a patch on his pillow until the vertical threads are awkwardly skewed to one side. With something this close, he can focus hard and pretend that his eyesight is what it was, that everything else beyond the pillow is just liquid and blur. 
>>> 
>>> “Gee, thanks.” Pete says wryly. “You know, you could go before me. Nobody ever knows what their individual quota is. Yours might be like, 70 or something.”
>>> 
>>> “Unlikely though, right?”
>>> 
>>> “Right,” Pete admits. Mikey can tell that Pete’s looking at him; he flicks his eyes up quickly, but Pete doesn’t glance away or anything. He just says, “I wonder what it’s gonna be like.”
>>> 
>>> Mikey hums. He shifts over onto a cool spot on the mattress. “I guess it’s not gonna be that much different from dying. Again,” he adds.
>>> 
>>> “Yeah,” Pete agrees. 
>>> 
>>> “I mean, who knew that being dead would be so much like being alive?”
>>> 
>>> “Yeah,” Pete says again. “But I’m kind of glad I got a chance to do it over, in a way.” He pinches Mikey’s thigh a little, just enough for it to hurt, and Mikey shoves him away good-naturedly. He can almost pretend that this is it, that there aren’t yellow stubs of paper littered all over the apartment, and that his fingertips aren’t slightly numb from taking four people today. 
>>> 
>>> He sees a smear of Pete’s smile before there’s another pinch, on his stomach this time, and yeah. He can pretend. 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> *
>>> 
>>>   
> _P.M Muir  
>  6:48 pm_
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Turns out that if a huge encyclopedia falls from a shelf and hits the right spot on your head, you bite it just the same as someone who fails to move off the railroad tracks in time or someone who gets fourteen bullets to the torso. Mikey thinks this is complete bullshit. At least he died in a way that somehow was worth dying for. He would have been pretty pissed if it had been some kind of freak accident, if he was the one in a million, forever a notation in a book full of weird statistics.  
>>> 
>>> Paula Muir looks back over her shoulder one last time, and Mikey and Pete both hold up a hand in farewell. She fades away not long after that, leaving the tiny nook of the library empty save for the two of them, but Mikey hears scratching noises overhead and he looks up to see the gravelings still sticking around.
>>> 
>>> “Fucking gravelings,” he mutters. He shoves his hands into his pockets and hunches his shoulders, but goosebumps prickle up and down his arms anyway. Gravelings are creepy little shits, with their mottled skin and hissing laughter. Mikey was a pacifist, but Harold wouldn’t mind taking a shotgun to a batch of those fuckers. “You ever seen one up close?” he asks Pete. 
>>> 
>>> “One of them got in my face a few months before you came along. I almost knocked its front teeth out.” Pete makes a fist and examines his knuckles, as if contemplating what sort of damage they could have caused. He glances up at the ceiling when one of the gravelings dances closer to them. 
>>> 
>>> “Sure,” Mikey says skeptically. 
>>> 
>>> Pete looks at him. “What? Is it written all over my face that I’m a lover, not a fighter?” 
>>> 
>>> “Maybe not over your undead face, but yeah, your real face.” Then Mikey realizes something; he asks, “What’s your undead name, anyway?”
>>> 
>>> “Peter,” answers Pete. 
>>> 
>>> Mikey blinks. “Wow. Really?”
>>> 
>>> “Pretty clever, huh?”
>>> 
>>> “That’s sort of the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Mikey tells him. 
>>> 
>>> “Better than Harold,” Pete grins. He swings his keys around his finger and asks, “Hey, do you want to drive?”
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Mikey doesn’t know what’s so funny about driving a truck, but he wants to laugh out loud as he pumps the gas pedal and guides the vehicle onto the highway. They rumble up and down and side to side, the bumpiness of the roads magnified ten-fold through the tires and rattling metal. Everything that isn’t anchored down buzzes its way across the floor and the dashboard. 
>>> 
>>> “I feel like – ” and then Mikey snorts out some laughter. 
>>> 
>>> “I know, right? I don’t even know why it’s so fucking funny.” Pete smiles back. He presses his palms against the back of his headrest, spreading his elbows like wings. On the other side of the highway, there are endless pairs of headlights looming up before fading away, white and gleaming and occasionally shining directly into Mikey’s eyes, causing him to squint and grip the steering wheel more firmly each time. 
>>> 
>>> “Angels and devils,” Pete says out loud. He doesn’t explain, but Mikey actually knows what he’s talking about for once. In contrast to the masses of headlights, the glow of taillights around them covers everything in a red sheen, like cellophane. The proverbial flames of hell.
>>> 
>>> Mikey says, “What does that say about where we’re headed, huh?” and Pete throws him a smile, quick but genuine, almost like he can’t help it. It’s a combination that only occurs when Mikey manages to surprise him. 
>>> 
>>> Mikey clenches his hands over the wheel and lets the speedometer creep up a couple notches. 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> *
>>> 
>>>   
> _D. D. Chambers  
>  10:01 am_  
> 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Bert’s been with them for about a week, but he picks up on things quickly, is more receptive and daring than Mikey’s ever been.
>>> 
>>> “Take risks, take souls. Can’t do one without the other,” Bert grins. He holds up his Post It before sticking it to the table. “Mine’s two blocks away. Eat shit, ladies.” He sips at his coffee daintily. 
>>> 
>>> “Fuck off,” Gabe says without looking up, but Mikey can see his cheeks shift as he smiles. Bert cackles too, and Mikey presses the rim of his mug against his mouth, lips curving upward to imitate its shape. 
>>> 
>>> Pete had fulfilled his quota with Bert. It had been completely arbitrary and unexpected – which should in and of itself be expected, Mikey thinks warily that night as he lies in bed. He stares out the window and wonders, for the millionth time, what Pete saw before he moved on; he wonders what he himself will see before he moves on, whenever that’s going to be. 
>>> 
>>> He cries a little, again, and without anyone there to tell him to stop, it goes on for a while. His eyes are puffy by the time he remembers that Harold has a meeting at 8:00am the next morning. Mikey sits up to set the alarm and he knocks over a stack of Post Its on accident. Over the course of it all, he's saved every single one of them and he doesn't even know why. 
>>> 
>>> He lies back down, tugging the comforter over his shoulders, and closes his eyes.   
> 

  
  


***

  
“If you ever left, where would you go?”   
  
Gerard tapped his cigarette over the side of the porch, letting a chunk of ashes float down with each touch of his index finger. He was trying to become a regular smoker, but mostly he was just letting the cigarette run down to the filter all by itself. “Portland,” he finally said.    
  
“ _Port_ land?” Mikey repeated, as if Gerard had said, ‘Neverland’, or, ‘Atlantis’. He knew it was in Oregon, because they’d been covering major metropolitan cities in school. “Why Portland?”   
  
“Because,” Gerard said. He took one last short puff and ground out the cigarette on the railing. “I hear it’s a good place for people like me,” he explained, like he already knew everything there was to know about himself.     
  
“Must be full of weirdos, then,” Mikey said. He tried not to indulge Gerard’s stupid moodiness a lot of the time, because it seemed like that made it worse.    
  
Gerard playfully flicked the cigarette butt at Mikey’s leg. “Where would you go, smartass?”   
  
“I dunno.” Mikey squinted across the street, at Mrs. Roby's hedges. “Somewhere not even on this stupid planet.”   
  
Gerard snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that.” He got up from the porch swing, stretched, then quickly brought his limbs back in and slouched a little. He kicked at Mikey’s ankles. “Come on, it’s getting cold. If you get sick again, Mom’s going to go crazy.”   
  
“You’re not my keeper,” Mikey told him, but he got up. When he opened the front door, the light from the hallway nearly blinded him; he squeezed his eyes shut, seeing nothing but curtains of static red.


End file.
